Husband at wits end over wife's spending

[bjl584]

What would you do here?
He is in a tough spot and doesn't want to break up his family, but it sounds like something needs to drastically change




I’m really at my wits end with managing the finances of our relationship. I work too much, and my wife spends too much. Our arrangement was that I would work and she would stay home with the kids, which is what we both wanted. Which is fine, but the caveat was that I need her to manage the budget better, and it’s a constant struggle.

I come from a more well off upbringing, and she comes from a poorer one, and I feel like this is the source of our struggles. To her, being broke and in debt is a normal stage of affairs. To me it is most definitely not.

So she doesn’t see it as an issue that I work multiple jobs, and we spend all that money. Meanwhile, I’ve been doing it too long and want to pull back on the amount of work for my sanity.

She really has no business having access to credit (she’s constantly in credit card trouble, debts charged off, etc all throughout our marriage). Meanwhile if I try to cap our credit cards or remove her access and give her cash for spending, she calls it financial abuse

I’m so sick of the constant fighting about it, but I don’t know what to do.

I don’t want to break up our family over this, but I also feel like I can’t live with all the responsibility, while my wife spends without ever worrying about where it’s coming from.

[myrdale]

The problem with commenting on these post, presumably based on some article on the internet is we have no feedback from the poster, assuming the original poster is real at all.

What is his annual income? If he is only earring $50k a year it is alot different than if he is earning $200k.

How much debt is she in? $1k? $10k? $100k?

He needs to put all of the accounts in his name, have one joint account which she has access to for covering the groceries and keep a close eye on it. If she wants to spend more, she is welcome to go get a job. Otherwise, get a divorce and sleep with her best friend and or sister.

[riverwed070707]

I get that marriage and finances are a tough topic to navigate (reasons DH and I keep things separate), but the thing that kills me about these posts is the lack of mutual respect and consideration. If my DH was busting his bum at multiple jobs to keep things afloat while I sat at home and spent all the income and he expressed to me how this made him feel, I'd change my behavior, no questions asked, because I love him and that's what a partnership looks like. This reads to me like two people who hate each other and are looking for something to blame their marriage issues on